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“My dream symbol — my personal symbol that is in every dream is always a house of some kind
That is why i do my birdhouse installations because for me its all about home I guess.
The other recurrent theme is multiple births.
Well, we have the baby
I am in a swimming pool or a tub or in a grocery store and you pop them out
I give birth to a litters of human babies
There are so many; like puppies or kittens, but they are human”

Recently RMB City Office had a visit from Speedism, the Belgium-based visual artist/ architect duo of Julian Friedauer and Pieterjan Ginckels. During their brief stay in Beijing, the pair had created one of their trademark “Speed Trips” – a surreal bus journey around the city with a group of other curious explorers, stopping at unusual places (from a baroque castle to artist Xu Bing’s workshop to a secret village) and getting a speedy montage view of the urban landscape.

Later they stopped by RMB City to share their creative process with our team, and discuss various possibilities for perhaps “speed-tripping” through a more virtual city in the future…

Speedism will also be participating in the Performatik festival next month, where RMB City will have a new project debuting as well (more on that to come). Happy tripping, Speedism!

After almost two years’ gestation, RMB City is going to open its door to the public on 10 Jan, 2009. Apart from the City’s opening ceremony, there will be two highly-anticipated events at that very special day. The first one is a virtual Feng Shui project by young artist Huang He who will bring the ancient Chinese methodology of sptaial use into a virtual space. The second event is the announcement about RMB City’s first mayor.

RMB City is featured in the new issue of Art Asia Pacific, which is also the 15th anniversary of the magazine. Readers can have a look at RMB City through the form of a conceptual “real estate listing,” and get excited for our upcoming opening.

RMB City is featured in the new issue of Art Asia Pacific, which is also the 15th anniversary of the magazine. Readers can have a look at RMB City through the form of a conceptual “real estate listing,” and get excited for our upcoming opening. Pick it up on newsstands in your city!

Letters always connect people in some way.One of Mianmian’s love letter recipient decided to write back to Mian Mian and thank her directly for the letter..

Dear Mianmian,

Thank you for your letter which I enjoyed very much. It’s good to hear
from you.

How did you guess I was not where I was expected to be? And my eyes
never closed to sleep. Well, they closed once or thrice, but not for
rest. I’ve met a boy, a french boy, ten years younger than me. He’s
mature for his age, as I am young for mine. He is an incredible lover.
Funnily, we’ve both worked for the porn industry – he as a graphic
designer, me as an art director for a magazine. But music is how we
connected. We locked eyes at Strangeways – beneath spinning lights and
deep hearty bass – he was cold and needed a blanket. I warmed him from
his toes to his belly to his mouth. He wrapped his scarf around my
neck and pulled me towards him. My eyes closed….and so it began.

Diaaalogue Editor Sue Acret spoke to Chinese artist Cao Fei about her Second Life project, her view on the virtual world and her generation.(中文版本)

Susan Acret: Please tell us about your avatar China Tracy and the RMB City work and how the online world of Second Life became a platform for these works.

Cao Fei: During the creation of i.Mirror and the China Tracy Pavilion (A machinima-documentary about China Tracy’s first explorations of Second Life, and the large-scale installation where it premiered at the 2007 Venice Biennale), I started to think about creating a place that belonged to China Tracy within Second Life… her own ‘city utopia’. China Tracy felt that since most cities within Second Life were Western in style, she wanted to represent some of her concepts about Chinese urban development in a space that incorporated Chinese aesthetics and identity, albeit in a surreal hybrid style.

S.A: You’ve said that your generation, brought up in a digital world, ‘will always compare virtual and real’ and that sometimes the boundaries between the two can be blurred. Your art reflects this movement between these two spheres. What opportunities do virtual worlds offer artists that are not available in the ‘real’ world?

C.F: Second Life is a world where the conventional free-market economy still applies. Although we call it a virtual world, its economic structure and the virtual currency is tied with the ‘real’ economy. From a visual perspective, Second Life appears to be hyper-real and excessively imagined. Combined with its uncertain identity, it can be mysterious and enigmatic to people. On arriving in this virtual world, China Tracy was attracted by the hyper-real prison, but also felt an unavoidable sense of oppression.

Although the boundary between virtual and real is becoming more and more blurred, the way the virtual world contradicts and coincides with reality offers something ambiguous and complex. This, to a certain extent, enhances our lives as a whole, providing a reference for the exploration of individuality and the nature of life.

Another reason that the virtual world appeals to me is that it transcends obstacles in reality, despite being hyper-real. It offers a virtual platform for human beings to experiment with a possible utopia, such as building an individualistic heaven, drafting laws and systems, generating new discussions and thoughts, etc.

S.A: Perhaps the main difference between virtual and real worlds is one of control. Though taking up an avatar offers a certain extent of autonomy and control to your visitors, you are still the mastermind behind the RMB city. Has any avatar’s behaviour been completely beyond your expectations or control?

C.F: Not yet, because the official public launching of RMB City is 10 January 2009. We look forward to having extraordinary people visit and miracles occur. Regarding the control issue, we just have some basic rules that are appropriate to the Chinese style; otherwise, there is no strict restrictions on avatars.

S.A: How many collaborators have you worked with for your RMB City project? How do you find your collaborations with these ‘real’ people?

1. Collectors
We invite collectors to actively participate in the actual development of the city. For example, we invited Mr Uli Sigg to be the first governor of the city (for 3 months), in order for him to oversee and propose a blueprint for the utopia of RMB City in terms of its systems, construction and direction.

2. Public organizations
We are now working closely with Serpentine Gallery. They are one of the real information centres for RMB City. Also, UCCA which will collect RMB City, will have a virtual art gallery and other independent projects. Some art organizations are willing to rent spaces to be involved in this project and also develop their own projects.

3. Exhibition/ Project
I have realized personal projects for biennials and triennials via RMB City, for example, for the 2008 Yokohama Triennial and New Orleans Biennial, as well as on some consigned projects, such as H Box’s video project. I would like to some overseas artist residency programs to take place the RMB City’s platform.

4. Other
We invite different parties (not just limited to the art field) in the real world to participate in the virtual world. We also invite Second Life avatars who are interested in our project.

Therefore, RMB City insists on ‘the cooperation of virtual and real’: collaborators should come from both worlds. Through this process, we hope to improve conventions and develop a new path.

S.A: Your use of internet platforms such as You Tube and Second Life is a democratic, open way of creating work, insofar as it is available freely to large numbers of people all over the world. Do you often get feedback from ‘non-art’ audiences on the internet?

C.F: Yes. I have received emails and messages to China Tracy in Second life, and comments on my YouTube videos, and friend-offers via My Space and Facebook.

I quite like these different forms of feedback from different channels, and meeting different people in different worlds.

S.A: What will happen to real estate prices in RMB City? Will there be a crash like that in the real world!?

C.F: There’s no significant change so far. A crash seems unlikely. We may consider launching some land-sale preferential policies, and increasing various land renting strategies.

S.A: Born in the late 1970s and brought up in the ’80s, can terminologies such as Generation X (the consumerist generation) or Generation Y (the Net-generation or Generation Why) describe who you are? From COSplayers to the RMB City project, are your art projects the result of generational influence or your personality?

C.F: Since 1978, China has undergone an inevitable reorganization. Before we were ready to respond, we were already receiving all kinds of influences from a new time. Everyone is the product of a generation; ‘I’ am an individual as well as a transcendental object. Perhaps a young person who attempts to influence the world or China Tracy who surfs around the virtual world, are indeed coming from the same route. And as for me, I remain extremely close to yet with an appropriate distance from any of these worlds. This gives me a macro view of the ‘world’. And then I decide how I should deal with it and derive my system to process all the complex messages of life. In Chinese terms, it involves entering (reality) and renouncing (the virtual) the world simultaneously. This journey is to experience both worlds while constituting the two.

S.A: Works like Whose Utopia? focus on China’s industrialization and the cities and factories that feed production. Does your work have a social/moral message?

C.F: You could say Whose Utopia? is related to themes such as political economics, globalization, the world factory, and social and moral, and so on … What I hope for my work is for it to remain in an open context where it can stand objectively, without being cynical or ambiguous. It does not require a ’correct’ perspective, or hypocrisy. It just needs an honest presentation and expression, leaving an open space for discussion. It is with this notion that I began RMB City.

Saturday December 13th saw a big crowd gathered at Song Bar for Beijing’s last Pecha Kucha of 2008, which featured project manager Miniature Tigerpaw (RL: Samantha Culp) presenting about RMB City. In case you missed it, see a few snaps below, and more on Pecha Kucha’s Facebook here.

December 11, 2008- February 15, 2009
RMB City is being displayed in a dedicated space as part of Cao Fei’s solo exhibition at Kunsthalle Nuremberg, Germany. The exhibition in the Kunsthalle Nuremberg is the first comprehensive solo exhibition of the Chinese artist’s work in Germany, organised in collaboration with Vitamin Creative Space, Peking/Guangzhou and Le Plateau, Paris.

Diaaalogue Editor Sue Acret spoke to Chinese artist Cao Fei about her Second Life project, her view on the virtual world and her generation.(中文版本)

Susan Acret: Please tell us about your avatar China Tracy and the RMB City work and how the online world of Second Life became a platform for these works.

Cao Fei: During the creation of i.Mirror and the China Tracy Pavilion (A machinima-documentary about China Tracy’s first explorations of Second Life, and the large-scale installation where it premiered at the 2007 Venice Biennale), I started to think about creating a place that belonged to China Tracy within Second Life… her own ‘city utopia’. China Tracy felt that since most cities within Second Life were Western in style, she wanted to represent some of her concepts about Chinese urban development in a space that incorporated Chinese aesthetics and identity, albeit in a surreal hybrid style.

In the past few months, RMB City team has witnessed how RMB City is developed from an empty island in Second Life to a fantasia that is not merely a spot mirroring our daily real life, but also lines of flight that activate limitless imagination and signification. The official opening of RMB City is less than a month away, RMB City team would like to offer a sneak peak of the city for all of you who are interested.

RMB City’s project manager Miniature Tigerpaw (RL: Samantha Culp) will be presenting about the project at Pecha Kucha Beijing. If you’re in town, come along to see some brand-new images of RMB City as it approaches its January opening…

RMB City is an online art community in the virtual world of Second Life. This project is an experiment exploring the creative relationship between real and virtual space, and is a reflection of China's urban and cultural explosion. RMB City is developed by Cao Fei (SL: China Tracy) & Vitamin Creative Space. Facilitator: Uli Sigg (SL: UliSigg Cisse). Presenter: Serpentine Gallery.